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A Prominent Collection at the Met: Food Carts

Carts operated by disabled veterans create (a) a hazard, (b) an eyesore, or (c) a convenience.Credit
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

The stretch of Fifth Avenue outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art — thronged by tourists but without a restaurant in sight — could be the most coveted location for selling a hot dog in New York.

The city once earned more than half a million dollars a year in vending rights from two hot dog carts in front of the museum. Then, two years ago, a third vendor, Dan Rossi, nosed his cart onto the property, saying that as a disabled veteran, he had the right to be there without paying the city a dime.

Mr. Rossi has held his ground, but he has also inadvertently prepared the way for other veterans. So this summer, visitors spilling out onto the plaza beneath the museum’s soaring Corinthian columns have stumbled into not two or three carts, but a small flotilla.

On Friday, eight were drawn up around the broad stone steps, and not one of them was paying to be there.

The museum and the Parks and Recreation Department, which controls the plaza, are none too pleased with the new restaurant row, where one can buy not just hot dogs but also Tibetan dumplings from a cart named Shangrila Express and lamb over rice from Veterans Halal Food.

“It’s creating a great deal of physical clutter and perhaps even a hazard,” said Adrian Benepe, the city parks commissioner.

Sheryl Neufeld, senior counsel in the administrative law division of the city’s Law Department, said the city did not contest the basic right of disabled veterans to operate in front of the museum. A 19th-century state law allows disabled veterans to sell in some areas that are off limits to others.

But, Ms. Neufeld said, because of regulations regarding their locations and because the bus and taxi boarding zones there must be kept clear, there was room for only one vendor. She added that the city’s decision would go to the one with the oldest city vending license. A spokeswoman for the Law Department said the city would not comment on who that would be.

Photo

Dan Rossi, in cap, was the first disabled veteran to claim his right under state law to operate in front of the museum. Credit
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

Police officers handed out summonses last week, in most cases for being too far from the curb. Vendors said they were in a catch-22 situation: If they were near the curb they would be ticketed for obstructing the bus and taxi stops, and if they were farther out on the sidewalk they would be ticketed for being too far from the curb.

“You have to be by the curb, but if you go by the curb they say it’s a bus stop,” said George Velis, 55, who was working at a food cart along with his nephew, Andreas D. Velis, a disabled Marine veteran.

Nonetheless, although the vendors now have sheaves of pink tickets, they were still there on Friday. A spokesman for the parks department said enforcement of the regulations would continue, but he refused to go into specifics.

One visitor on Friday, Barbara Chiminello, said the vendors provided a service, given the dearth of reasonably priced restaurants nearby. “There’s no places around,” said Ms. Chiminello, 65. “Madison is very expensive for families.”

Another visitor who said she was a museum member but would not give her name was less enthusiastic. “It’s like being in Coney Island,” she said.

Harold Holzer, the senior vice president for external affairs at the museum, said it objected to the vendors because they could obstruct pathways in and out of the building. “Our concern is about the safety issue on the plaza,” he said.

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And visitors should be able to climb the stairs “without having to endure a serpentine path,” he added.

The city once had the situation in hand. In 2007, a company named New York One began a contract to operate the only two carts in front of the museum, agreeing to pay the city $575,990 for the year. After Mr. Rossi showed up, sometimes selling at cheaper prices, New York One cited the effect of the competition and was able to persuade the city to accept only $364,672 for 2007.

New York One ended its three-year contract early, and the city put the vending rights out to bid again, expecting bids to come in lower because of the competition. Surprisingly, the winning bid was $642,702.19, from a man named Pasang Sherpa.

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Some of the tickets he has received since last week.Credit
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

Perhaps not surprisingly, his carts were evicted two weeks ago for nonpayment.

“A lot of people come down there; I can’t make money,” Mr. Sherpa explained. “That’s a problem for me.”

Now Mr. Rossi says that the competition is hurting him and that the other vendors are paying veterans just so they can operate at the museum. He dismissed them as “rent-a-vets.”

“They’re piggy-backing on what I’ve done,” he said. “They hire a vet to sit.”

Ms. Neufeld, the city lawyer, said “the disabled vendor actually has to do the work” if a cart is in a disabled-veteran location.

On visits this week, the degree of veteran involvement at some carts was hard to ascertain. All the carts could produce disabled veterans when asked, although in some cases they were not the ones working the grills.

Leo Morris Jr., a Vietnam veteran who was sitting outside a cart one day this week, defended his role. “There’s a mutual business relationship between some vendors and disabled veterans with a license to be at this location,” he said.

Harold Dalton, who served in the Army from 1979 to 1983, holds the permit for Veterans Halal Food. “I found a guy that wanted to cooperate,” he said. “I hop up there every now and then, sling a frank or two.” (While pork is forbidden in Islamic tradition, and thus is not halal, these hot dogs are beef.)

Philippe de Montebello, the longtime director of the museum, who retired last year, said many public spaces welcomed salesmen and entertainers.

“The issue one can have with the whole plaza of the Met and the dozens and dozens of vendors of all sorts is a matter of density, inconvenience and a missed agora effect,” he said, using the Greek for “marketplace. (He said he was speaking as a private citizen and not for the museum.)

“What could have been in the scale of what is appropriate has become dense and disagreeable and lost all of its possible advantages,” he added.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Prominent Collection at the Met: Food Carts. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe